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Emily Dickinson goes to her first slam at 14.
She brings a journal full of feathers and bees.
She wears a cardigan over a printed button up her father
said was too loud, which she leaves on a chair almost
immediately. It will be there when she comes back.
She reads a piece about grass. It’s actually about longing.
It’s actually about a girl. She doesn’t know how to
use the microphone. The judges award her
an average of 4.8 points, but everyone encourages
her to come back. Which she will never do. She goes home alone.
Emily Dickinson goes to her first slam at 19.
She crushes the 1-minute rounds, each sundrenched
word magnified to scorching. A boy offers to buy her
a drink. A girl offers to buy her a drink. But her eyes are already
swirling, soul expanding beyond her fitted pants and high-necked
starch. Already absorbing the ether of applause. She runs
outside. Stands in the chill autumn with the smokers, gasping
against an empty night begging to be filled with anything.
Emily Dickinson goes to her first slam at 24. She does not read
from a notebook, does not hide her slender fingers in a deep pocket.
She recites a piece about spring that’s actually about a girl, actually
about being a girl, it’s funny, and she knows it, and the audience steeps
in her sonics like sweet tea. She goes up again with a piece about pain.
Two men leave in a huff. No one misses them. She tries a stunt
towards the end, pulls flower petals from her sleeves, but they spill out
too early and everyone sees her wince, tells her to go in, and she snaps
out an ending dark and crisp as winter dawns. A boy offers her
a drink. A girl offers her a drink. Later she will write a poem about
following the girl down concrete steps to taste her kiss. She will
use plums for central imagery. The poem will be a lie or a wish
or NSP entry. She goes home alone.
Emily Dickinson goes to her first slam at 35. She wears the white
dress, but only to be ironic. She doesn’t bring a notebook. In the first
round, Emily stares out into a crowd that has already cast her in a play
she’s no interest in starring in, there are so many better stars to hold her
gaze, her gay lives in sundrenched fields, she would much rather welcome
them to count her feathers, feel the seasons
murmur their own secret longings with her breath across their necks.
But not tonight. She steps up to the mic and with the calm fury of a spring-thaw stream
invites Billy Collins to fuck right off into the sun.
She gets all 10s and goes home alone.